


Terrible Fate

by Sounddrive



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Angst, Blood, Blood and Injury, Gen, Ghosts, Red Plague (The Arcana), The Lazaret (The Arcana)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-27
Updated: 2020-03-27
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:41:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23339326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sounddrive/pseuds/Sounddrive
Summary: The Fool comes to the mortal realm to help a lost friend.
Relationships: Apprentice & Asra (The Arcana), Apprentice & The Fool (The Arcana), Asra & Apprentice (The Arcana)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 22





	Terrible Fate

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to tumblr on February 27, 2020
> 
> A/N: Before anyone asks, I don’t know a lick of the Legend of Zelda lore. All I know is that quote and it felt very fitting for this piece.
> 
> Content Warning: Canon-Compliant Character Death and some mild body horror.

⁂ ⁂ ⁂ ⁂ ⁂ 

_“You’ve met with a terrible fate, haven’t you?”_

Since the day the furnaces were lit, the Lazaret regurgitates the ashes of the dead. High, high the gritty, blackened plumes swirl away from this mausoleum. The trails permeate into the sky above, the winds carrying the choking motes to Vesuvia.

On the gray, sandy beach of this wretched place stand two entities. One, as old as human thought, leans against their walking stick. Their face is obscured by the hood they don. Strangely, they’re barefoot, cloak gently fluttering in the breeze.

Beside them is a grotesque apparition. If one blinks, one would assume it to be a flicker of the light. The companion is black and red, skeletal in appearance. They bare no flesh; it’s not solid flesh, at least.

If Fool were to think it, the other’s ‘skin’ is more like melted paint. Their companion is made of harsh lines and blood curdling imagery, and yet they’re so brittle.

There’s ashes upon Fool’s hand from when the apparition grasped at them. Fool couldn’t help feel sympathy when MC balked as parts of themself broke off.

The poor facsimile of a spirit couldn’t answer any of Fool’s questions, much less talk; their jaw’s missing.

Earlier, the pair were looking around the mounds that littered the sands of the Lazaret. Neither knew how long they were at it, but neither really cared. The jawbone was necessary to hold a conversation; the Spirit didn’t want to lose whatever left was of their hands if they gesticulated their words.

“Do you have any idea where you could be?” Fools asks, neck craning to try and see the tippy-top of the Lazaret from their spot.

All MC does is shake their skullish head in turn.

“Hmm, pity... would make this much easier, my friend,” Fool sighs. They turn and look at what’s become of this magician.

They wanted to find a cure for the Red Plague. Instead of finding a solution, the price of their dedication, or recklessness really, was their death.

The spirit sits, legs—‘legs’—crossed beneath their emaciated body. Either out of boredom or unsure of what else to do, they carefully drag their hands through the sand in front of them.

Where MC sits, it’s close enough to the walls of the Lazaret where it’s not as dyed with the ashes of the dead. It’s also the furthest part away from the mounds of bodies behind them.

Walking over, The Fool murmurs, “You can stay here; I’ll go and look for your jaw. Once within an arm’s reach, Fool gently taps the carapace of the other’s shoulder with a finger. The spirit waves them off, not looking away from the sand.

With that, Fool continues to look around the area. Their grimace deepens the more and more they find, and the more they _couldn’t_ find.

⁂ ⁂ ⁂

Many suns and moons pass overhead. How many, neither of the two entities care to count.

MC got up every once in a while, pacing about the walls of the Lazaret listlessly. With each lap, they seem to be even more lost. They only give passing glances to the other spirits, fellow victims of the Red Plague’s. Those ones flash in and out of reality, screaming and clawing the air around them in vain.

It’s too cacophonous at times. Fool envies the corporeal living for being unable to hear it.

Fool knows they’ve been on this plane for too long, but they still have a mission to fulfill.

That jawbone had to be _somewhere..._

* * *

For once in the dead of night, the typical din of the dead is a low babble instead of a roar.

Fool’s seated themself down in the sands, their forehead atop the knees pulled to their chest. Their hood is pulled almost too far over their face, as if trying to hide it from the other spirits.

Arcana don’t sleep, but they can try.

As the waves crash into the beach, the sea water passes through Fool. For a moment, they are still. Their ears perk up at a familiar sound: a rowboat.

A rowboat is approaching. It’s another load of dead to be fed to the fiery bellies of the Lazaret, Fool thinks.

What they’re surprised to find, however, is that there’s only one passenger.

By the light of the full moon, the lone rower uses magic. From the water, the stranger launches their vessel harshly into the ash-caked beach. The force of the landing smashes a furrow into the sand, the pilot almost falling out from their boat.

Fool recognizes him immediately, slowly shaking their head.

“You’re too late, child...”

Magical compass in hand, Asra struggles to calm his breathing. His hat is left discarded in the boat, red scarf whipping around him as a strong sea breeze passes over the island.

The needle jerks around, rattling loudly as Asra scrambles about the place.

“No, no no no no, please, _no_...” he pleads, choking on tears as he finally follows the direction the arrow settles upon.

Fool follows behind him, curious. Of course, this garners the attention of a certain spirit. MC follows just five paces behind Fool.

The Fool cannot decipher what their companion is feeling beyond that their emotions are strong, yet unknowable.

Eventually, Asra finds the mound. Fool stops about a meter behind him. The spirit on the other hand, walks until they stand just a breath away from where Asra kneels.

As their friend digs with his bare hands, MC looms behind him. In the ash-choked sky, the spirit casts a menacing shadow over the white-haired magician.

Fool finds it admirable Asra can bite through the pain: his nails chip and break, his skin is scraped and his hands drip with blood from his efforts.

As the magician continues to dig, Fool maintains their meter-long distance away from Asra. However, they circle around, wanting to see what his face would be when he finds _them_.

⁂ ⁂ ⁂

_Eventually..._

Asra stops, eyes wide as his fingers touch bone. Hands shaking, he lifts a skull from the pit.

There’s no jaw to be seen.

The dam within Asra finally breaks. Cascades of tears flow freely from his eyes, dripping down his face and wetting the sand below him. He presses the skull to his forehead, sobs renewed as he begs for forgiveness from their friend.

The spirit behind the mournful magician casts their gaze upon the skull in Asra’s hands. Their expression, as ever, is inscrutable.

“Well,” Fool shrugs, “at least we know where you are now.”

* * *

How Asra gets off of the island with his mangled hands, along with the bones of his dear friend, Fool could not remember.

Their goal was to assemble a jaw for the spirit kneeling in front of them. Fool couldn’t miracle them back to life, but at the very least they could give MC a jaw-like apparatus.

“Almost there...” Fool sews magic into MC’s skull-like face, making the right adjustments. It’s like sewing a mask directly into place. Fool’s tools are a magical needle and thread made of light. Motes of fiery ash float around MC’s head, acting like anchors for Fool’s handiwork.

As the Arcana works the needle through MC’s disembodied ‘cheeks’, streaks of ash dribble from their eye sockets.

Fool stops sewing a moment, looking at their companion’s face. “Does it hurt?”

The spirit gently shakes their head in _no_. With a nod, Fool continues their work until it all settles into place.

“Alright, try to talk.”

MC works their new jawbone for a while. Once it properly pops into place, they squawk, their whole body juddering from the sudden re-connection.

_“Th-thank... you...”_

Fool offers their deceased companion a small smile. They extend their arms out, shoulders scrunched with this unfamiliar gesture.

MC takes up the unspoken offer, hiding their skeletal face to Fool’s cloak. Fool carefully supports MC as their body shudders, ashes spilling out of their eye sockets to their cloak.

Fool didn’t mind being in that hug for too long. Before they have to leave MC behind in this place, they make sure the anchoring motes around MC’s head will remain charged.

Strangely, they look like spikes. The four points extended from the top of their head in symmetrical angles. MC didn’t seem to mind.

Even if their jaw is barely visible, it was the least Fool could do for them in this circumstance.

“I’ll miss you,” Fool murmurs, gently squeezing MC’s ashen hands. MC returns the gesture, some flakes of themself sinking into Fool’s own.

Fool won’t bother to wash the ash off. It’s a macabre keepsake, but it’s a keepsake all the same.

Bringing down the butt of their staff to the ground twice, a portal opens up behind them. As Fool steps through the entrance to their realm, floods of other deceased begin gather, wanting to follow after the Major Arcana.

MC remains a statue behind that mass, a towering shadow above all the rest as they rush for the portal.

Fool wishes they can’t hear. As the portal to their realm closes behind themself, the agonized screaming of the restless spirits will forever ring in their mind.

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Thank you very much for reading; I hope you enjoyed it as much fun as I had writing it!


End file.
